The role of sleep oscillations in temporal lobe organization

即使在我们睡觉的时候，大脑也不会休息。相反，在睡眠期间，大脑充满了同步的神经活动，呈缓慢振荡的形式。长久以来，人们一直认为这些振荡有助于增强记忆或“巩固”记忆，但慢波过程中涉及的大脑区域及其所经历的处理过程仍未解决。新大脑皮层中活跃的神经元在睡眠振荡期间重新激活，这表明了一种加强记忆痕迹的方法。虽然这种现象最先出现在大鼠的海马体--一种有助于形成新记忆的结构--但我继续证明，重新激活是一个在新皮质的大片分离区域中同步发生的过程。这也是首次证明灵长类动物的记忆痕迹重新激活，如果重新激活是巩固人类记忆的基础，这是一个重要的先决条件。

Even when we sleep, the brain is not at rest. On the contrary, during sleep, the brain is full of synchronized neural activity that takes the shape of slow oscillations. These oscillations have long been associated with helping memories to strengthen, or 'consolidate', yet the brain regions involved during slow waves and the processing they undergo is still unresolved. Neurons in the neocortex that were active during an experience 'reactivate' during these sleep oscillations, suggesting one way of strengthening a memory trace. Although this phenomenon was first seen in the rat hippocampus - a structure that helps in forming new memories, I went on to show that reactivation occurs as a synchronized process throughout large, separated regions of the neocortex. This was also the first demonstration of memory trace reactivation in primates, an important prerequisite if reactivation underlies the consolidation of memories in humans.